


History Has its Eyes on Me

by fardareismai



Series: Make The World Better Promo [2]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, First Meeting, Modern AU, meeting at the edinburgh protests au, tumblr prompts fulfilled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 10:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9542831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: Jamie and Claire meet at the Edinburgh protests of Donald Trump.Part of my Make The World Better Promo





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for aruza83 on Tumblr who has donated to UNHCR, Greenpeace, and WWF and is providing groceries to a local women's shelter.
> 
> To honor her hard work and generous spirit, I have written the following prompt at her request:
> 
> Something from Outlander Jamie+Claire

“But why?” Frank, my fiance had asked as I had walked out the door that morning.  “What difference will it make?”

The honest truth was that I had no real answer for him, only that I could not continue to sit quiet at home while the world seemed to fall apart on all sides.  My own home country had voted in favor of xenophobia and self-interest, and our closest ally seemed to be descending into outright authoritarianism.  Perhaps a protest in Edinburgh could do nothing tangible, but I had to stand up and be counted.  I had to say “no.”

And so, when the call for volunteers had come, I had answered.  I had often wondered, as a child, what I might have done had I been alive during the rise of the Third Reich in the 1930s.  Would I have joined the ranks of women serving as nurses and ambulance drivers in the mud and blood of the Continent?  I liked to think so, but I could not know.  Instead I had to determine what I was going to do now, and it appeared that the answer to that question was ‘running a first aid tent during a Scottish protest of the American president.’

There was absolutely no accounting for history.

The protest was largely peaceful and I was mostly kept busy providing hot drinks and blankets for those occasional fools who hadn’t dressed warmly enough for the January afternoon, water for those who hadn’t thought to drink, snacks for those who hadn’t thought to eat, and shelter for the occasional child who had gotten separated from their parents.  My tent with its big red cross on the top was easily visible from the entire parade route, so the other volunteers found it easy to point frightened children and frantic parents alike toward me.

I wasn’t busy the entire time, and took the opportunity to take photos of the protesters themselves, by turns amused and impressed with the sentiments expressed in marker and poster board and in shouted, rhyming chants.  My heart went out to the American people who continued to fight and protest and stand against a wave of tyranny, and I could only hope they were taking heart in our small solidarity.

It was nearly three hours into the march that I was brought my first injury.  When I saw that my patient was a university-aged man, I assumed that I was seeing my first example of political discourse by way of fists, and wondered which side of the discussion the tall red-head and his supporting friends had been on.

Once I began examining him, however, I realized my mistake.

“How on earth did you dislocate your shoulder?” I asked, shocked.  “You surely didn’t get that fighting.”

“Erm… no,” the lad answered, not meeting my eyes.  His friends sniggered and I saw that his ears were turning red.

“You might as well tell me,” I said with a sigh, taking hold of his arm and examining the situation before deciding on my precise course of action.  “This is going to hurt, best you have something to keep your mind off of it.”

The lad seemed disinclined to this idea until I turned his arm slightly and he hissed out a painful breath.

“Aye, weel,” he said, voice tight, “it wasna anything much.  Only we were horsing around a bit.  Rabbie had jumped on my back so I would carry him about a bit, and then I was pretending that I’d do the same to wee Angus- not serious, like, but only to scare him.  But I did scare him and too much, and he stepped too far away from me when I jumped and I fell right on my arm- oh!”

This last came as I slid the joint back into place with a sickening crunch.  Not fighting then, it seemed, but foolishness.

“I am glad you weren’t being violent,” I said, as I moved over to my small case of supplied to find a sling, “but your marching day is done, I’m afraid.  I’m going to give you this sling, and a paracetamol, but you need to go home and rest.”

“I’m the ride home for half these lads,” the young man said, frowning at his friends.  “And I leave now, they’d have to do so as well.  No, I’m quite fit to keep marching, surely.”

He stood to rise and I laid a hand on his good shoulder, shoving so that he would stay seated.  He was, of course, much larger than I and I could have forced him to do nothing unwilling, but he took the hint and sat again, glaring up at me with eyes the colour of the summer sky at Giza.

“You are not fit to march,” I said, returning his glare with interest.  “If your friends cannot leave, you will remain here so that I can keep an eye on you to be sure you don’t do anything else passing stupid to that shoulder I’ve only just mended.  Do you understand?”

The young man continued to glare, but one of his companions let out a low whistle.

“D’you know, Jamie m’lad, she might be near as stubborn as you are!”

That set the entire group hooting in laughter at the idea, except for Jamie who blushed again.  It was odd to see a man who blushed so easily, and oddly endearing, I thought.

“All right, Fraser, you stay here with the pretty nurse and we’ll come get you when all’s done,” one of the lads said, waving the others toward the entrance to the tent.  “D’you want us to send Murtagh your way?”

“Nay,” Jamie grumbled.  “Only tell him where I am.  He’ll no worry if he knows.”

“Perhaps it’s not for his benefit we should send him.  Who knows what designs the pretty sassenach might have on your person, Jamie.”

I turned away from this conversation, laughing silently at the teasing.

“No,” said another.  “Did you no see her ring?  She’s marrit!”

“Oh well then, perhaps your virtue is in safe hands.  We’ll find you again when all’s done then, Jamie.  Have fun.”

As the boys left noisily, I heard one ask, “how is it Jamie’s always making times with the prettiest girls we meet then.”

I turned to grin at the young man who was looking after his mates with annoyance writ clear across his face.

“Your friends seem to care for you a great deal,” I said, joining him so that I could continue watching the march as I had been doing before he arrived.

“They care to make me look a fool before new friends is what they care,” he complained.

I snorted a laugh, but said nothing.

After some minutes of remarkably comfortable silence, I asked him what brought him to the protest.

He shrugged awkwardly, only his left shoulder, leaving his right as still as possible to keep from straining it.

“I dinna like bullies,” he said simply.  “And Trump is a bully of the highest order.”

“I agree,” I said, “but he’s all the way in America, and not your problem.”

Jamie snorted.  “As goes America, so goes the world they say.  But you’re right, he doesna directly affect me.  But still… I couldna just sit by.  I wanted to do what I could to say to the people he’s attacking- the Muslims and gays and the like- that they’re not alone.  I dinna know if it means anything, but I wanted it said, aye?”

I nodded.  “It takes something special in the way of guts to stand against something that doesn’t affect you, you know.”

He shook his head, red hair catching the light like copper.  “Nay, it’s not much, and it’s not as though there’s any real danger to me.  Not like them in the states- especially if they’re black or Muslim.  But what about you then.  What brings you here?”

I shrugged in my turn, surprised to find the question posed to me for the first time that day.  As a volunteer, my reasons seemed to be assumed, but here it was- the moment of declaration.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.  “I know it isn’t my fight, not yet.  But I suppose… I suppose I feel that we’re at a turning point in history, and what is done now will echo down the generations.  I just… I want to know that my echo is for the good.  Does that make any sense?”

He was watching me carefully, slanted blue eyes steady, good-natured, handsome face serious.

“Aye,” he said, softly.  “Aye, it does.  It’s… it’s about what kind of world we’re building.  For our children, aye?”

Something about the way he said that, “our children,” made me shiver.  As though he were talking about our children- his and mine.  As though…

But then he blinked and turned back to watch the march, and whatever spark it was that had been between us in that moment was gone.  I wondered if it had been snuffed out, or merely vanished beneath the kindling to begin a build to some great blaze.


End file.
